Perfectly Imperfect
“Consider it all joy when you face trials of many kinds, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” // James 1:2-4
It’s no secret I’m a recovering perfectionist.
I used to say it as a joke, like it wasn’t that big of a deal. I didn’t realize that my obsession with perfection (a completely undefined, ever-changing, and unattainable standard set by no one else but me) was completely suffocating me and sucking so much joy out of every aspect of my life. I didn’t realize it until I read Kill the Spider - a book about “getting rid of what’s really holding you back.” The title comes from this truth: we often pray for God to remove the cobwebs in our lives, but what we should really be praying for is help killing the spider.
I read this book after hearing the author, Carlos Whittaker, speak at a family ministry conference in Orlando. This conference happened a week after my husband and I found out our third IVF transfer had failed. Needless to say, I wasn’t in a great place - mentally or emotionally - and going to this conference was the last thing I wanted to do. But I had signed up to be one of the drivers before I knew how I’d feel day-of, and I honestly think it was God’s way of making sure I was there.
I bought Kill the Spider after hearing Carlos speak and started reading it as soon as I got home. God revealed to me the lie I’d been believing for far too long - my spider - and it rocked my world.
If I’m not “perfect,” I’m worthless.
If I’m not “perfect,” I mean nothing to God and His Kingdom, my community, or the world.
To be worthy, significant, valuable, meaningful, lovable… a person, place, relationship, or event must be “perfect.”
And the more I leaned in to the truth that those thoughts are complete lies, I began to see how the lies had crept into - and almost devoured - every single aspect of my life.
In my home, I obsessed over everything being perfectly clean and tidy, organized and decorated. In my relationships, I obsessed over being perfectly known and received and perfectly knowing and loving the other person. When taking pictures, I obsessed over the perfect lighting and composition and pose and every hair being in place. On social media, I obsessed over the perfect photo editing, perfect caption, and perfect timing of the post. In blogging, I obsessed over having the perfect words at the perfect time. In my quiet time, I obsessed over reading the perfect passage of scripture and devotional and getting the perfect revelation that perfectly lined up with the events of that day. In my prayer life, I obsessed over saying the perfect words and being in the perfect place so that God would perfectly hear me and perfectly answer. In my life story, I obsessed over making sure everything that happened was perfectly meaningful - everything falling on a special day and every date being significant.
Trying to make everything “perfect” completely consumed my thoughts, words, and actions. And if everything was not “perfect” (spoiler alert: nothing ever measured up to my made-up and unattainable standard of “perfect”), I felt like a worthless, useless, unlovable failure.
I started looking up the word “perfect” in God’s Word and came across a passage that I’ve loved for a long time:
“Consider it all joy when you face trials of many kinds, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” // James 1:2-4
Turns out, being “perfect” comes from imperfections. Trials, suffering, testing of our faith. We are being and will continue to be refined - perfected - until the day we are “perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” in the presence of God.
I thought that fullness of joy would come when everything was “perfect” - whatever that meant. But I have realized that joy is only made full when we abide in the love of the perfect One. Only Jesus brings true joy because only Jesus is truly perfect.
I am not worthy or valuable or significant when I am perfect but because He always is.
I am not loved because of anything I have or haven’t done, am or am not doing, will or won’t do. I am loved because I am His. That’s really it.
God loves us with a perfect love simply because we are His.
And that truth has brought more freedom to my life than I could ever imagine. Freedom to be the woman God created me to be without obsessing over everything being “perfect” first. Freedom to love and serve and try new things. Freedom to open my home and my heart. Freedom to be fully grateful for where I am and what I’ve been given. Freedom to relish and rejoice in the difficult and imperfect days, knowing that those “imperfections” are actually what perfect me.
Killing that spider allowed me to take the longest, deepest, purest inhale I have in a very long time. Believing that lie was literally sucking the life out of me. And Jesus is not about that.
“The [spider] comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” -Jesus